Anthony Keidis on Making Red Hot Chili Peppers’ New Album ‘The Getaway’

Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis phoned The Kevin & Bean Show to premiere “Dark Necessities,” yesterday and during the interview the singer pulled back the curtain on their forthcoming album, The Getaway, set for release on June 17. It is the first in 25 years not to produced by long-time collaborator Rick Rubin.

It’s been 5 years since the band’s last album I’m With You was released.

“We had an unusually difficult experience making this record where we wrote 20-30 songs and it was all ready to go and we thought it was happening, and then Flea went snowboarding and broke his arm real bad, which was a bit of a setback for the bass boner [laughs]. So we rethought everything and then we didn’t have a producer and we were just sort of lost in space with all these songs. Lo and behold it was meant to be, as these things can be, and when all the dust settled Brian Burton, aka Danger Mouse, emerged and said ‘Let’s go make a record.’ We were like ‘Great, we have all these songs’ and he was like ‘Leave those there, let’s go write new songs in the studio.’ So the process began over again.”

“He has very specific Brian taste,” Kiedis explained. “He just wanted to see what would happen when we got in the studio and started something fresh. Initially there was an affinity and a marriage to all these other songs, but the only way we saw this working was to have trust in him and get rid of our old ideas and our old way of doing things and say ‘If this is going to work, we just have to throw ourselves off the cliff and see what happens.'”

When asked about the album artwork for The Getaway, Kiedis said “Normally we get a little more high brow artsy, and this just felt extremely warm and human, even though it’s animals, and it’s also us. Chad is the bear, Josh is the girl, Flea is the raccoon, and me as the funny little raven out front.”

Fans who pre-order the album via the band’s website will receive an instant download of “Dark Necessities.”

After an appearance at KROQ Weenie Roast on May 14, Rock on the Range on May 22, and May 29 at BottleRock in Napa Valley, the Southern California band will hit an extensive series of European festivals with no U.S. dates announced at this time.

“Very excited to have a lot of new songs to play. This being our second record with Josh, it feels a lot more fulfilling. It’s always great to have a job as a musician. It’s great to be in this band. We love seeing the world. But to have all these new songs at our disposal for live shows makes it feel like ‘Let’s go. We have a mission now.'”